The more you understand yourself, the more you understand the world.

The more you meditate, the more you understand yourself and the better friend you become to yourself.

Faith is not a commodity that you either have or don't have - it is an inner quality that unfolds as we learn to trust our own deepest experience.

The trick is to keep exploring and not bail out, even when we find out that something is not what we thought.

The past is for learning from, not for living in.

You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.

We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

Only one book is worth reading: the heart.

The practice of ethics is not about following rules but about developing inner purity and freedom.

A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals a secret of hidden treasure.

If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.

To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.

Try to be mindful and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool.

In meditation, we are continuously discovering who and what we are.

You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers can't solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth - inside, not outside.

The five aggregates are not a theoretical model but a description of lived experience to be investigated through mindfulness.

The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him. This state of unconsciousness is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill.

Silence is so much more productive of wisdom and clarity than thinking.

Love is the wish that others be happy, and compassion is the wish that they be free from suffering.

The Noble Eightfold Path is not a path of mere intellectual understanding but a path of practice, of inner transformation.

Sleep is the best meditation.

No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

The root of suffering is attachment.

Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

When you note pain, you are not trying to make it go away. You are trying to understand its true nature.

Life is an art, and like perfect art it should be self-forgetting.

Every moment of mindfulness is a step on the path to liberation. Each step is valuable, no matter how small.

When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways - either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength.

Dependent origination is not a theory about the origin of the world but a teaching that shows how suffering originates in dependence on our own mental processes.

The highest mantra is to be without deception. The highest medicine is to have few desires. The highest meditation is not to be attached.